


Days go by

by empires



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Slice of Life, Spanish National Team, footie slash, old fandoms die hard, real madrid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:05:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9096499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empires/pseuds/empires
Summary: Sergio agrees to help babysit his niece for the summer.prompt: the postal service - the district sleeps alone tonight





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dollylux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/gifts).



> I started this story a long time ago and decided to clean it up and use it for the advent challenge. I miss writing like this. I miss this fandom. So, here's to nostalgia.

“We just think that he needs help. Until this job of his settles down.”

“Paqui,” Sergios’ father touches his wife’s arm gently. “You’ve said that before. Sergio understands.”

“At least he understands. That company doesn’t.” She dabs the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief. “They want good employees but they try to take them away from their homes. How can a man be happy when he isn’t at home to be loved? Isn’t that right, Sergio?”

“Yes, mama.” Sergio says dutifully but she’s already continued counting the ways to make a man like Rene happy. His mother is always so emotional when it comes to the favorite son.

“He needs to be warmed from the inside out. Hot food every night and a warm bed. How can he be happy when there is no one there for him to hold?” She sighs heavily and leans against her husband who wraps an arm around her gently. “Maybe my son will find a _good_ woman if he had a little time to search.”

There is no love lost between Paqui Ramos and the woman who left her son standing alone before god at the church and a daughter on his doorstep a year later. She leans into her husband to ward away the sadness and the shame her son endured.

“Do you mind spending the summer in the city?” Of course his father would be the one to ask such a thing even if they’d outlined the plan to Sergio as if his bags were packed. “Rene offered a stipend for when you want to go out. And there is a music school.” He pauses but Paqui only nods. A concession then for Sergio missing time with his friends.

They don't know that Sergio has only dreamed of spending time with his brother in the city. Now, after months and months of broken promises, now he can go. Nothing else really matters. Still, he smiles at his parents. "I'd like that but there may not be time for me to attend. I can tour the school, see how they divide up summer classes. When am I supposed to arrive?”

“Tomorrow,” says his mother. “Now we have to tell Rene.”

“Convince,” his father says wryly.

“No. He will see reason, you’ll see,” says his mother. Her words are final.

 

* * *

 

Sergio arrives in Sevilla on the afternoon bus. The other passengers unload slowly, so slowly, milling in the aisle and sighing plaintively. Sergio slings his backpack over one shoulder waits. While Sergio stands still his fingers pick at the clasps a quick plucking movement that could be the start of a run on the guitar bound beside him. No one had looked twice when he carefully locked the case into the seat with the seatbelt, and tucked into the seat.

His fingers move again, a scale this time, while he thinks about what Rene will say, what he will do, how this is going to happen. He loves Daniela and she adores him—even his mother says so—but keeping a little girl all day…. The thought makes him nervous.

His knees wobble when he steps into the dock and grabs his duffle bag. Grey and stenciled in military white. Rene had found it for him at the market. He always knows the things Sergio would like, want, even the way Sergio liked to be woken up, slowly with a warm hand moving down his back. The older he gets and the further apart he and his brother grows, Sergio realizes there is very little he knows about Rene.

Climbing the stairs he thinks about Rene and realizes he doesn’t remember what his brother’s favorite soda is, where he goes to find detergent, what breakfast he’d like in the morning. He tries to picture Rene but the details are hazy. It’s been four long months since they’ seen each other. Last night had been the first time they’ve spoken on the phone in three weeks, and all Rene had said was, a _re you coming to visit me? Good. I’ll pick you up at the south entrance_.

His brother no longer has time for long, twisty conversations where secrets emerge. He has a job that wants to promote him again and a daughter who needs him. Really, he is being pulled in many directions.

Sergio slows to a stop at the edge of the doors. A thought strikes him: will he even get a chance to spend time with Rene?

“Wonderwall!” The nickname startles Sergio. He hadn’t heard it in a long time. “You almost passed me.”

Rene shifts his daughter along his hip before pulling Sergio into his side. He smells like cologne and stale milk but he feels the same even if it’s a one-armed hug and Sergio’s hands are too full to do anything except squeeze the handle of his guitar case and the strap of his backpack. He feels wet fingers press against his cheek; Daniela.

“Dani.” He turns to nuzzle at her fat cheeks and she squeals and sputters.

“What were you thinking about?” Rene pushes him back. “Didn’t you see us back there?” He nods over his shoulder back to the families embracing.

“No?” Sergio shrugs. He couldn’t tell Rene that he had been too deep in his thoughts to see him. His forehead is at Rene’s nose now which means he’s grown the past few weeks. “You look different?”

“Really?” Rene grins when Daniela wiggles into him bubbling happily. “Good or bad.”

Rene had come from work. Then he looks again, really looks. Rene seems leaner and the shadows beneath his eyes crease like paper. The tie and fitted slacks tell Sergio that his brother came directly from work to the nursery school and then here, the bus stop, after a long day of work. He looks tired.

“You cut your hair.” Sergio’s grin begins to fade during this quick cataloging. “It’s so short. But good.”

“Yeah?” Rene pets the back of his smooth neck. A sight Sergio has never seen before. “They have me dealing with the English partners. They don’t like. Well.” He shrugs. “You know how it is.”

Sergio nods pretending like he does know.

He spends a lot of time nodding. At the parking lot Sergio nods when asked to take Daniela. He nods when Rene suggests taking the long way home so that he could see places around his new neighborhood. He nods again when asked if he had a good trip, if he was looking forward to the time out of school, if he’d considered lessons at the old master he thought lived around the block. He nods when Rene asks if he were hungry

“What’s wrong, Sergito. You tired?”

“No.” Sergio sits up straight. “I’ve just never been to this part of Sevilla before.” The world outside them swims through heavy fabric and maybe the same heat that saturated the color of the roofs and wilted the fountain in the idle of the park. There, people waked slowly and corner themselves beneath long, full glasses.

“Yes you have?”

“When?” Sergio couldn’t remember entering La Alameda before.

“When you and Mirian came to help me search an apartment,” says Rene. “It’s the one on the fifth floor with the third bedroom with the balcony. You two made me promise to have enough room for you.”

“The one I liked?” Vaguely, he recalls there had been an apartment with a guest bedroom that had its own bathroom and tub-shower, and from the windows he could see Camas as a dark green line above the horizon. Sergio remembers leaning against the iron rail and thinking about staying in that place forever.

Rene reaches squeezes his knee and gives a little shake. “The one you liked.”

Smiling, Sergio tilts his face into the sunlight. His grin and his eyes are only for Rene.

 

* * *

 

The tour of Rene’s neighborhood is cut short by Daniela. Her light crooning slowly turns to annoyed whimpers and then tears. She cries for almost ten minutes while Rene and Sergio attempt to soothe her with soft voices and waving fingers.

“I’m sorry.” Rene bounces his daughter gently but she still screams softly, face red and fat with tears as they walk up the apartment stairs. “She usually calm this time a day. And we rode in the car.”

Sergio carries in all of his luggage and Daniela’s bag in behind them. The apartment opens into a wide living space and two large windows that open to a green courtyard in the building’s center. Empty when he had first seen it, Rene’s big flat screen T.V. mounts the wall across from a low black couch. Toys fill the space between; pink puppies, yellow blocks, a plush white pony with soft legs. The kitchen is—Sergio looks to his left—that way. He takes the diaper bag there and starts pulling the bottle free. His mother had been firm on warming milk gently by using a sauce pan, but his niece is hungry now. The microwave it is.

He brings the bottle to Rene who is pacing the nursery in quick steps. His mouth trades between a breath-taking smile and frown quickly. His brother moves like the weight of the world rest on his wide shoulders.

“I warmed this up.” Sergio holds up the bottle.

“You did? Oh good. Thank you.” Rene’s voice wavers as if he couldn’t believe the warm bottle’s existence until it’s in his hand. Sergio has never heard his brother’s voice sound exactly like that before low, anxious, relieved.

“Maybe I should.” Sergio reaches out for them, but Rene turns back to the small window and begins humming. He brushes Daniela’s lips and she opens her mouth squealing approval.

“No. No, you’ve done enough today.” He’s rocking back and forth gently wiping at Daniela’s teary cheeks. “And you still need to get settled. I’ll call up for Chinese for dinner. That okay?”

Sergio puts his hands into his pockets nodding. Rene doesn’t ask him anything else for the rest of the night even at dinner when they had two bites of warm Mongolian beef and lo mien before Daniela began crying again.

Alone, Sergio goes to his room for the summer. It’s long and narrow. A twin bed on the wall across from a wide glass that opened to the street and a wardrobe and chair sit against opposite walls. He puts up his clothes and shoes up then unpacks his books, his music, and his iPad, and when he’s done, Sergio rests his forehead against the door and looks down on the street below.

The view reminds him of home despite the fact that he’s only on the fourth floor of a fifth floor building and that he can see white stucco and red roofs down to the green park and the faint white lines of the Roman columns in the distance. The strangers are familiar shapes moving slowly seeking water and shade to escape the evening heat. There are small, older cars trundling around the corner and every so often the driver stops in the middle of the street to carry expansive conversations with someone hiding beneath the wide green awnings.

Sergio opens the doors and the summer breeze rushes over him fluttering his shirt and sending his hair flaring over his shoulder. Now he can hear the sounds of home, faint squeal of tires, laughter, and beneath it, the steady pound of hammers. He steps onto the narrow ledge and braces on the metal railing so he can look left and right, but it’s the home across the street that is being worked on. He hears the calls of the works muffled by the thick walls, and their laughter. It’s a nice sound. He wants to join them.

Resting with his back against the curving loops of the railing, leg extended over the turquoise and yellow ceramic tiles that line the balcony floor, Sergio begins to strum his guitar. His fingers run lazily through the chords weaving the day through dreams, and when he sings, his voice fades against the sun’s rays.

_I come_

_I come to Sevilla_

_I come to Sevilla with a song in my heart_

_I need courage to find the words_

_  
_

* * *

 

“Hey, yo, let’s go, Wonderwall.”

Sergio rolls into his pillows and groans.

“I heard that. Time to get up.” Rene peaks through the door. One sight of Sergio tangled and trussed up sends him laughing. He picks up a shoe and tosses it laughing when it bounces off Sergio’s round butt to the floor. “We need to be out in twenty so we can take the bus to the nursery!”

“Why can’t I drive her?” He grumbles into the pillow.

“You don’t have a car.”

Sergio wrestles with his blankets and pillows and sheets until he can sit against the headboard. His hair slides into a woven pile at his shoulder, golden skin exposed from neck to chest in his oversized tank. “You have a good raise now, hermano. Buy me one?” He pouts, sleepy and begging.

“I.” Rene’s mouth parts but whatever he says is lost in a sudden cough. “Get up, lazy. You need to learn this for Dani.” And with that Rene shuts the door behind him leaving Sergio to greet the day.

The window is still open and the city sounds louder on a Friday morning. There is a construction crew is already working across the way. A big dumpster truck is already sitting below the open windows, and when Sergio returns from his shower, he sees the workers tossing items over the narrow balconies. Sinks, wood, plaster tumble down six stories with loud bangs and crashes. He wonders if the old building will be turned into apartments too like Rene’s with a garden secret at its heart surrounded by sleepy neighbors.

He stands in the corner farthest from the glass doors and dresses, soft shorts, fitted shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes, no socks. He’s brushed, fresh-faced, and in the kitchen warming milk before Rene walks from the back with Daniela settled on his hip.

Rene looks him up and down. “That was quick.”

“You just take too long to get dressed. You always take so long in the shower.” Sergio remembers that well enough. He had always been the last of five to get ready in the morning. Mama and Papa up at dawn but Rene and Mirian both took long showers with their scented soap and conditioner leaving Sergio four minutes of lukewarm water every day. He still showers quickly now and gets ready equally fast.

“Mm,” Rene grunts. “I want to leave as soon as I pack Dani’s bottles and her snack. I think I have to wash some. I forgot last night.”

Sergio sets three bottles of milk on the counter and one bottle of juice. He places a thermos of espresso beside it.

Rene’s eyes light up and he pulls Sergio against him in a tight hug. “I’m not just saying this because of the coffee, Sergio,” he says against the skin of Sergio’s pinkening cheek. “I am very glad that you’re here.”

“Me too.” Sergio folds his fingers against Renee’s hips slowly. “Me too. I’ve. You know. Rene. I’ve—“ He is interrupted by a sharp beep followed by the jingling ring of Rene’s phone on the counter.

Rene sighs heavily. “I have seven alarms to get me through the day.” He claps Sergio on the shoulder and pushes them part with a rueful smile. “Put those things in the bag. I’ve already put in diapers and her extra clothes.”

“Got it.” Sergio swings the bag over his shoulder and waits for Rene to return. Daniela burbles softly. Her face scrunches back in a wide smile-yawn-smile at Sergio. She’s too small, he thinks suddenly, to be the center of the universe.

“Then let’s get my little princess to school.”

The travel is very quick, especially just after eight when half the world was just returning home. The bus ride is short and tragically uneventful. He meets Daniela’s teachers and then the rest that always seem to float out of the shadows when Rene turned on his charm. He had only been able to nod at them all shortly remember his father’s guide to women in his ear: treat them almost as nice as I treat your mother; warm, respectful, and with a little fear. They complimented Rene on his daughter, his brother, the time he must spend doing so much in the world, and Sergio suffers through with polite nods. Dani presses her slobbery kisses to his cheek laughing when he laughs, and the morning seems a little brighter when he and Rene leave.

“You think you can get her to and from okay?” Rene asks on the bus back to the apartment.

“I’ve got the route down,” says Sergio. It’s only fifteen minutes into the city.

“Good, good.” Rene stretches back against the green seats. Everything about him seems crisp, his starched blue shirt cool and aloof like the morning sky, his pants nicely pleated, his brown shoes shining bright against the worn bus floor. “What are you going to do today?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Walk around maybe. Get a feel for the area.”

“Yeah,” says Rene slow and considering. “You know, I think I’ve seen some guys playing football out at one of the colegios south of here.”

Sergio shrugs. He hasn’t felt the urge to play in months. “Maybe. I just want to look around now.”

The look Rene gives him is that same disbelief like he can’t understand why Sergio would want to simply walk through the cobblestone and cement sidewalks. Why he would care to find the bones in the city and stand beneath the green tress in the park. Why he wouldn’t want to find his own way. Sergio looks out the window at the rolling neighborhood. Rene is only seven years older than him but it’s never felt so far away. He keeps his hands tucked beneath his thighs to keep from reaching for something he shouldn’t want to touch.

Rene’s phone rings before they’re even off the bus and he’s conducting business there on the street. It continues up the stairs, while gathering the laptop with the list of things he had promised to leave for Sergio, folders into his leather satchel—the one their father bought it when Rene graduated from university—Rene mentions about Paolo and how he never had his shit ready on time. Yes, he’ll be ready. Yes, he can budget an extra hour or two tonight if it’s necessary. Sergio follows his movements as he circles the room. Rene’s reined flurry makes the morning trip to the nursery seem organized. He bends down to pick up a pen three times before kicking it across the room. His arm disappears deep into the back of a drawer and Rene pulls out three thumbdrives from a small box.

He’s still on the phone mouthing, “I’ll call you later,” before Sergio realizes he’s leaving. The door shuts behind leaving a glimpse of Rene slipping out the door, a familiar sight, one that makes his chest squeeze and his face heat. 

 

* * *

 

With only forty euros in his pocket and only brief familiarity of the area after touring with Rene and Dani for less than thirty minutes, Sergio decides to do lunch at the taberna on a nearby street. The name, Corto Maltes, stroked something in his memory, a picture story that his father would read to him when he was a boy. He sits in the corner eating slowly and watching the leaves rustle back and forth.

One day into his summer but it looks like Sergio will be spending more time alone than he’d planned. He’s got to find more to do.

Planning a routine is something he’s not used to doing, not as a way of picking up things to fill spaces. Sergio choses life and more often than not, life choses him. He’s without his parents for the first time and under another man’s roof. Rene’s apartment. The world is limitless in those few moments, or will be on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the days Daniela goes to nursery school. Maybe he would consider finding some footballers in the neighborhood and join like Rene suggested, or there’s the music school he once begged his parents to enroll him in. Now, the school seems so expensive. He could look into guitar lesson with someone nearby iinstead. He has more than basic techniques down. He wants more, a master to teach him how to call the moon down and illuminate a partner on a stage.

But what he wants most of all at least one of the mornings Rene promised him. He leaves the restaurant considering his very few options.

Walking back to the apartment, Sergio sees an influx of people standing at the edge of his street looking. He pushes through the people politely, “excuse me. I live here. Please,” and makes his way to the spectacle’s center—the construction crew hoisting a wide stone beam to the sixth floor using a rope and pulley. Several men wearing thick gloves have the rope wrapped around their hands and pull until the stone rests two feet above the ground. Three feet. Five feet and Sergio eyes the way the strain of muscle beneath their thin shirts. He’s never really seen working men this close before and the sight makes his stomach flutter weakly. Sweat at the temples, thighs taut, backs arched as they slowly move the stone.

One of the workers grunts, “Fuck. It’s starting to swing.” He’s standing with his back to the sidewalk, hands on his hips looking up. He shouts a few more things, hold the line, or something, but Sergio’s eyes are on the strong lines of his back and shoulders seeing only strength there instead of the unease.

“Campo! Watch your line! Everybody get back,” the worker shouts swinging around to look at the crowd but Sergio doesn’t hear anything but the sound of his heart beat racing. Their eyes meet and Sergio feels rooted like the soles of his feet found good earth in the center of a storm and he can only stand and hope to survive.

He doesn’t recognize the slow tear of rope or the groan of the crowd. The man looks away again but Sergio doesn’t have time to breathe because the worker is racing toward him, gaze back again, fierce, suddenly close and when their skin touches, when he slams against the wall trapped between stone and hard, heated flesh, Sergio doesn’t even have air to gasp. He chokes breathlessly on the sudden upwelling of dust.

A woman screams in the distance.

“Casillas? Casillas you okay? Where are you?”

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” Casillas shouts, and his voice, which is like thunder, turns soft. “Are you okay?” Sergio looks up when a hand curls along his cheek. “That was close, huh?”

“I don’t know?” says Sergio. He’s looking at the faint frown lines that mar this man’s features, the worry that fades into a disbelieving grin. “What? What happened?” Pushing up to his toes, Sergio peers over the man’s shoulders and moans at the sight.

The stone sits cracked into, the lower in less than a foot from where he’s pressed against the building.

“Oh.” Sergio notices his voice trembling.

“You know how you feel now, bonito?”

“Grateful,” says Sergio. He settles back to the ground and soaks in the warmth of this man, this body who saved him for one moment more. “Thank you.”

Casillas’s mouth crooks lazily. “No problem.”

 

* * *

 

Sergio fights against the memories of that incident for hours. If he closes his eyes, everything comes back in jarring color blurring backwards and forward slow. Dust. He had felt it trickle along his arms when he stepped onto the sidewalk. The shadow falling towards him sudden as a wild bird. He had never seen the beam coming. That was what scared him the most; the fact that he could have been hurt or worst and would never have known.

Then he had been crushed against an ancient stone wall saved by a nameless man. But Sergio did see the face. Pale, and sharp all over, straight nose, clean jaw, and lips that spoke words he’d been unable to understand at the time. His eyes had cut over Sergio’s body searching him. They startled Sergio with their intensity, with their darkness and heat. His gaze sliced like a sunburn and even now, Sergio’s cheeks blister pink in memory.

The worker had called Sergio pretty. No, Casillas had called him pretty.

The only thing that has calmed him is Daniela. The little princess. The little star. She hasn’t given Sergio much time to do anything other than care for her. He’d been careful returning home but the construction crew had left for the day, the dumpster a lone reminder of his brush with death. He blushes at the thought. _You’re so melodramatic, Sergio_ , is what his sister would say. Daniela only touched his cheek and smiled at him when he froze, skin clammy, hands sweating, at the end of the road. She spurred him into action, and now, she’s resting on his chest asleep. He kisses the top of her head and settles into the couch.

Waking startles Sergio as did the hand smoothing over his forehead and into his long hair. He licks his dry, cracked lips and sighs.

“You awake then?” Rene’s voice is deep and so near that he hardly recognizes the sound.

“Mm. What time is it?” asks Sergio after stretching his toes into the armrest and his arms above his head. He pauses. “Where’s Dani?”

“Put her in bed. The two of you were snoring.”

“Don’t snore,” say Sergio and Rene’s fingers card over his scalp gently. He tries not to press into the touch but. He opens his eyes and peers at the clock on the cable box. “It’s late.”

“Yeah. Don’t want to go to bed just yet.” Rene touches the shell of his ear and carefully gathers the fine stray hairs that always seem to cling to his cheeks. “Anything interesting happen today?”

Sergio closes his eyes and wills himself not to think of the hand that had rested along his neck and the other feeling Sergio’s heartbeat. The relief in his eyes. Casillas, the man who thought Sergio was pretty, enough so to save his life.

“No. No,” he says with a sigh. “It was a good day. Boring.”


End file.
